DENTAL CONSERVATION.

Shannon News, 14 November 1922, Page 4

DENTAL CONSERVATION.

$ MISCHIEF DONE BY SWEETS. "Sweets, by promoting the decay of the teeth, are doing a great, deal more harm than drink to the health of the people," declared Mr George Thomson, a 1 London dentist, at the British Dental Association’s Conference at Newcastle. This, he said, was the opinion of several authorities who had investigated the subject. It was time that dentists carried out a campaign against sweets. Mr A. E. Rowlett, of Leicester, referred to the teaching of Sim Wallace that almost all dental disease was the result of the diet of civilisation, that the elimination of the fibrous elements in food did away with the necessity for thorough mastication, and that'the enormous preponderonce of fermentable carbo-hydrate, together with this lack of function, inhibited the growth of the masticating apparatus, and also loft stagiiation areas which were so great a menace to the health of the oral cavity.

How were they to convey these truths 'to their patients? Their hope rested in the young mother. The father, too, in the ease of the.first child was more likely to take an interest. Once the habits had been formed with

the first child they would automatically

be inculcated in the rest of the family. ) Siiuxde rules should be laid dou’n thus. 1 j Be sure the, child sleeps with the j mouth shut, and'whon awake breathes . through the hose. ■From tlie age of two let each meal { contain some food that.needs grinding. \ Do not drink until the end of a meal. I Avoid many sweets and sweet biscuits, and only give them as part of a meal. Finished each meal with a piece of fresh fruit or crisp salad, or, if those are not obtainable, a stale crust of bread, with butter if preferred, but not jam. .Diet depending so largely upon the

bread of'the nation, he said if they could make the hard French roll the general bread of England there would undoubtedly be a tremendous improvement in the teeth of the country. The coarsest forms of flour were preferable to white flour, but even the latter, in hard, crusty rolls, needed a good deal of mastication, and was at the same time palatable and clean.

It was not uncommon to find children and adults whoso teeth were in such a condition that they were physically incapable of masticating hard bread or hard apple. “Every time,” he added, “we see a child with a tooth tender to touch, we know the child’s meals do mot include food demanding mastication before it can bo swallowed.” In dental prophylaxis proper feeding was an essential, and the tooth brush a useful adjunct. The correct brushing of teeth was as artificial a technique as playing the piano or riding a bicycle. When, they saw the number of shops devoted to sweets, the magnitude of the problem was manifest. The dentist’s best efforts were often stultified by the gifts of generous but mistaken relatives.